Confined to a Missouri state insane asylum, a boy named Birdie is taken under the wing of Josh, an elderly patient who has learned the ropes at the institution and who eventually helps him escape, only to return himself to the asylum.

After watching a homeless man collect empty soft drink cans for the redemption money, a young boy decides to collect cans himself to earn money for a skateboard until he has a change of heart.

Orphaned and homeless, fourteen-year-old twins Vick and Tara, who is autistic, go up against a crime lord and her four-legged robotic army, with help from their robotic dog Daisy.

Two children learn from their experiences of homelessness and uncertain housing that despite their living circumstances there are aspects of their lives that remain constant.

Ben, now grown and in the care of good-hearted prostitute Rita and her boyfriend, unknowingly helps them transport drugs to Paris.

When twelve-year-old Nell and her best friend, Lydia, are forbidden to see each other, they hatch a plan to spend their summer days in an abandoned miniature golf course, where they soon find others in search of a home.

On Saturdays, Delia and Jesse help Shoebox Sam, who teaches them about charity and love by not only repairing shoes for paying customers, but also giving poor and homeless people the dignity--and footwear--they need.

Since his mother's death, Jayson, twelve, has focused on basketball and surviving but he is found out and placed with an affluent foster family of a different race, and must learn to accept many changes, including facing his former teammates in a championship game.

Seventeen-year-old queer adoptee Manny, now homeless, sets out to find his sister Elena, who is still enmeshed in Christ's Dominion, the community that abandoned him, but the journey is fraught with danger, as he is forced to confront the religious trauma from his past.

Valli has always been afraid of the lepers living on the other side of the train tracks in the coal town of Jharia, India, so when a chance encounter with a doctor reveals she also has leprosy, Valli rejects help and begins an uncertain life on the streets.